


What Spring Does to The Cherry Trees

by gaiyok



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, just all the sappiness, just another object/character study, sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 11:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12342081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaiyok/pseuds/gaiyok
Summary: It’s a declaration





	What Spring Does to The Cherry Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Please take the time to leave a comment if you enjoyed this! Every comment no matter how small is motivation to keep writing :)

 

_“I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,_  
_dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses._  
_I want to do with you_  
_what spring does to the cherry trees”_  
_-Every Day You Play_ **by Pablo Neruda**

It’s meant as a declaration. A subtle one, nothing flashy or gauche.

The locket is old, ancient really, a remnant of old earth before humanity began streaking away through space chasing dreams made of starlight.

Peter found it perched on a stand beside his target in a museum on Mercury, catering to artifacts and antiquities from all over the galaxy.

A small gleaming thing the deep buttery yellow of proper old-earth gold with a matching chain; it would have been a crime to leave it in that cold sterile building. Not when Peter could already picture it warmed by Juno’s skin, shining softly in dim office lighting while the detective puzzled over yet another case.

He cleans and inspects it back in his hotel room on Typhon, after fencing the last of his ill-gotten gains to a particularly slimy looking fellow from the Andromeda galaxy with a penchant for 22nd century old-earth shoes.  
  
Oval and about the size of the pad of his thumb it is remarkably unadorned. Well crafted to be sure and a particularly rare specimen for its purity of gold, but not flashy in any way. He hides it away in an inner pocket wrapped in a handkerchief, a plan already half-formed in his mind.

It’s not until weeks later when he is back on Mars, emptying his pockets into the various drawers of his workshop desk that the idea finally comes to fruition.

Juno is off chasing down a mobster with an unfortunate habit of absconding with other people’s children, so Peter has the whole apartment to himself.

He sets up a jewellers station at his desk and begins painstakingly picking out words into the soft gold of the locket. A half forgotten verse from one of the books he took from the museum, the words clinging to his mind like burrs.

_“I want to do with you_  
_what spring does to the cherry trees”_

It’s meant as a declaration.

Of his love, of his devotion, and his commitment to them _(to Juno)._

“I want to do with you -” He says the words out loud as he carves them deep into the gold; repeats them, rolls them over his tongue and whispers them like a prayer over his work.

“I want to do with you -” ‘ _what the spring does to the cherry trees’_

His mind completes the sentence even before the second word is out and he allows himself to meditate on the meaning of it.

_I want to help you bloom into happiness_

_I want to build a life with you, set roots deep into this inhospitable planet and make place for us here._

_Let us turn the pain and desolation that colours our pasts into something beautiful and real. However fleeting it may be._

_I want to do this with you_

He lays his gift, his offering, on Juno’s pillow the next morning.  
He is a daring man, but he is not quite brave enough to face giving it to Juno personally. Not when there is a chance, however small, that his sentiment may not be returned.

He gets a message in the early afternoon hours letting him know that Juno has finally wrapped up his case and is heading home to shower and sleep. Peter deliberately ordered another coffee and forces himself back to the blueprints on his screen.

Three hours later there has been no further contact from Juno and Peter’s heart is about to pound out of his chest.

He takes the most direct route home, chasing the dying rays of sunlight.

Juno is already in bed, snoring as the last rosy fingers of sunset creep across his chest through the open window. Illuminating the locket resting in the natural cup of his throat.

Peter’s heart begins to slow, and a smile curls at the edges of his eyes and mouth. He begins to undress and is pulling the covers back from his side of the bed when he stops.

There is a note on his pillow, Juno’s typical scrawl softened into something deliberate with care

_“At night I dream that you and I are two plants_  
 _that grew together, roots entwined,  
and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,  
since we are made of earth and rain.”_  
**_\- Come to bed you idiot._ **

  
The morning would come, but tonight there would be dreams of growing things under a burnished golden sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Please take the time to leave a comment if you enjoyed this! Every comment no matter how small is motivation to keep writing :)


End file.
